Skip to content The. Only. God.: The Giftings of the Holy Spirit Jan 26 · 58 min ...more
The. Only. God.: The Giftings of the Holy Spirit
January 26, 2025 · 58 min
Pastor Jeff emphasizes the importance of spiritual gifts in the church, reminding the congregation that these gifts are meant to build each other up and serve the body of Christ. He provides examples of various gifts, like evangelism and teaching, and encourages believers to discover and use their unique gifts to glorify God. Pastor Jeff highlights the significance of love and humility in delivering these gifts, asserting that without them, the gifts lose their power and purpose. As he prepares for communion, he reinforces the centrality of Jesus Christ as Lord and the shared mission of believers to serve one another through the gifts bestowed upon them. Speaker: Jeff Schwarzentraub
Series BRAVE Church January 26, 2025 · 58 min · BRAVE Church
Pastor Jeff emphasizes the importance of spiritual gifts in the church, reminding the congregation that these gifts are meant to build each other up and serve the body of Christ. He provides examples of various gifts, like evangelism and teaching, and encourages believers to discover and use their unique gifts to glorify God. Pastor Jeff highlights the significance of love and humility in delivering these gifts, asserting that without them, the gifts lose their power and purpose. As he prepares for communion, he reinforces the centrality of Jesus Christ as Lord and the shared mission of believers to serve one another through the gifts bestowed upon them. Speaker: Jeff Schwarzentraub ...more Show the full description Show less Pastor Jeff emphasizes the importance of spiritual gifts in the church, reminding the congregation that these gifts are meant to build each other up and serve the body of Christ. He provides examples of various gifts, like evangelism and teaching, and encourages believers to discover and use their unique gifts to glorify God. Pastor Jeff highlights the significance of love and humility in delivering these gifts, asserting that without them, the gifts lose their power and purpose. As he prepares for communion, he reinforces the centrality of Jesus Christ as Lord and the shared mission of believers to serve one another through the gifts bestowed upon them. Speaker: Jeff Schwarzentraub
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Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub serves as president of Pastor Jeff Ministries, a national and global ministry designed to equip believers and challenge them to take
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0:00 Well, morning. Will you help me welcome all of our brave campuses that are worshiping here with us today? So great to have all of you. Wanna thank all of you for being part of our 21 days of prayer0:11 and fasting. That was a great experience for us. We're gonna continue to pray. We're gonna be a praying church. As you may or may not know, Saturday mornings are not continuing for the immediate future, but we're putting0:22 some other things together. We're gonna roll those out to you here in the coming weeks. Want you to be aware of that. Also letting you know, next Saturday is our warrior summit. If you are a guy 160:34 or over and you're not signed up for that, sign up today. Plan on bringing a friend, you will not wanna miss it. It'll be a great time for all of us. Also wanna say this, the bible says that0:46 righteousness exalts the nation but sin is a disgrace to all people. It also says in Proverbs 29 verse 2, and the righteous increase, the people rejoice but when a wicked man rules, the people0:57 groan. I've been groaning for far too long. And as we've been praying, I wanna let you know that when we see someone in office use1:09 their authority to wield biblical values, we need to give Jesus praise for what they're doing. Amen? And regardless of your1:20 conviction of president Trump as a man, let me just tell you a couple things that went on this week from the White House. Number 1, sign an executive order that America will only recognize 2 genders, male and female.1:36 President J. D. Vance and several of the cabinet members were at the March for Life and we're promoting all of that. Amen? President Trump's defunding all
1:48 taxpayer moneys for abortions both here and abroad, which is awesome. 23 people that had protested peacefully against abortion
2:00 clinics were pardoned and released this week which was incredible. And let me just tell you, that's just to mention a few. So I don't celebrate a man, I worship the Lord
2:12 Jesus Christ and serve him only. However, when somebody who has authority and power to wield biblical values does so, it's worthy of praising Jesus and continuing to pray for leaders to do
2:24 the same. Amen? Amen. It's been it's been a great week to watch those things and I'm not being a good pastor if I don't point those things out to you. And this is nothing new for us as a church. We've been about this
2:34 from the beginning. We even have some cadres that do resistance cadre training to go and protest peacefully. Just to give you an example, on November nineteenth of last year, we had a group go up to Boulder, 1 of the
2:45 largest abortion mills in the country where people fly in from all over. There was a couple that flew in out of town to abort their child, and our team was there and loved on them and encouraged them not
2:57 to, and got them to believe that having the child was the best best brave church prayed for them to fly home with the baby in utero, and I wanna let you know something. I'm gonna show you a picture. On
3:08 January sixteenth 20 25, yeah. So this is this is Lionel Jeremiah Cordova. Right? I think there's only been 2
3:20 lives that we know of that have been saved out of that abortion mill and this is 1 of them. And friends, righteousness exalts a nation. We must be about righteousness outside the walls of our church and
3:32 never back down from what the truth of God's word says. Amen? Amen. Well, that let's continue as we continue to seek the Lord in prayer and let's get ready to hear from his living and active word among us. Father in
3:42 thank you so much for this week. Lord, we pray for president Trump, his cabinet. Lord, there's so many that have taken their oaths and have given Jesus Christ all the glory and honor, which was so
3:54 refreshing. It's been refreshing our culture to see athletes do it more and more, politicians, educators. Lord, would you have your reign and rule in our country? Would you be high and lifted up? Would you guide our
4:05 politicians to align with biblical values and truth? Lord, we will stand by anybody Republican or Democrat that aligns with the word of God. We love you, Lord, and we bless your name. And Lord, we thank you today that we
4:16 get a chance to hear from your word because we as a people here at Brave believe that every time your word is faithfully and accurately proclaimed that you are speaking. And so our prayer this morning is speak Lord for
4:25 we are ready to hear. And so now for all those who have gathered who desire to hear the Lord Jesus Christ speak directly to your heart, who will believe what he tells you and who will by faith put into practice what he
4:35 shows you, will you agree with me very loudly this morning by saying the word amen. Amen. This morning I wanna talk about the giftings of the Holy Spirit. I wanna talk about the giftings of the Holy Spirit.
4:47 As we've been in this series of the only God, we started by taking a 4 week look at who the person and work of Jesus is, that he's the eternal God that became incarnate, that died on the cross for our sins, rose from the
4:57 dead, is coming back soon. And then we began to take a look at the Holy Spirit. We took a look at the advantage that we have with the Holy Spirit because when Jesus said if the if I leave, I'll send the Holy Spirit to
5:08 you. And now every believer has been baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ. Every believer has been filled with the Holy Spirit. We can continue to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We're indwelled with the
5:18 Holy Spirit forever. We've been taking a look at how we have liberation in the Holy Spirit, freedom in the Holy Spirit because there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus so we can live out the work
5:29 that God wants us to live because the Holy Spirit is inside of us. And today we're gonna talk about the giftings of the Holy Spirit. For every single believer, when you're converted, the Holy Spirit gifts you.
5:41 Some he gives 1 gift, some he gives 2, some you may grow into over time, but everybody is a gift to the body of Christ to serve the body of Christ. And we're gonna talk about today how the Holy Spirit
5:53 does that and why the Holy Spirit does that. This is not gonna be a study on all the gifts and what all of them mean and how all of them operate. It's gonna be very limited. It's gonna be much more on who the Holy Spirit
6:05 is and what he's doing in those parameters to get us there. And it's important that you understand this because even after Jesus Christ rose from the dead and the disciples were congregating with him and they were
6:17 asking him about, you know, when he was gonna set up his kingdom right before he ascended into heaven. And he said, it's not for you to concern yourself with times or dates. This is acts 1 8, but you will receive power
6:27 when the holy spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. He says, I'm gonna send the holy spirit, you're gonna be indwelled, you're gonna bear
6:37 witness to my name every single place that you go. That's exactly what's going to happen. And then we read other scriptures like in Ephesians 2 8 and 9 says, for by grace you've been saved through faith is not your own
6:48 doing, it's a gift of God so no 1 should boast. But the next verse in Ephesians 2 10 says this about his church, for we collectively, brave church, the whole big c church, we are his workmanship created in
7:00 Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand so we would walk in them. And then he says in John chapter 14 12 to 14, that if we believe in him, the works we've seen him do, greater works
7:12 will we do than these. So it's very interesting that Jesus keeps promising this holy spirit to all of his disciples and that they will do great works when he comes. And the reason is because the holy spirit gifts every
7:24 single believer to deploy their gift for his glory. So today we're gonna do something I haven't done in a while. We're gonna look at 3 chapters. First Corinthians chapter 12,
7:36 first Corinthians chapter 13, and first Corinthians chapter 14. So we're not gonna read every single verse of every single chapter, but we're gonna kinda lay out a framework as we roll over it. What are the giftings of
7:47 the Holy Spirit and what does that look like? And so we're gonna start by taking a look at the deployment of those gifts. So if you open your bible up to first Corinthians chapter 12, first Corinthians chapter 12,
7:59 we'll begin there. First Corinthians chapter 12. Now before we start, let me just give you a little framework before we begin. Depending upon who you talk to and who you're listening to
8:10 and what pastor is talking, scholars normally list between about 18 and 28 spiritual gifts depending on who you talk to. I'm not here to argue how many there are today.
8:22 Okay? As a matter of fact, I'm not really here to argue anything. I'm here just to present biblical truth. Different people add different gifts. For instance, some people that have more gifts would maybe add the gift
8:34 of martyrdom. It's the gift if you get, you only get to exercise once. Right? Other people would say that's not really a gift, that's just something that happens. Some people might add the gift of
8:46 music. Some people would add the gift of craftsmanship. If there is such a gift, I did not receive it. Some people would add a gift of intercession. And so depending on how
8:58 you read your bible and what you see, you may come up with a number of different ones. That's not the purpose of this message. What I want you to understand is that spiritual gifts are simply this. They are supernatural
9:09 abilities. Say that with me. Supernatural abilities. Okay. They're supernatural abilities that the Holy Spirit gives to believers to build 1 another up. That's what they are. There's supernatural
9:21 abilities that the Holy Spirit gives to believers to build 1 another up. When other people are built up, it glorifies God and then it's used for his church, empowers the church to advance his kingdom. But first and
9:33 foremost, the Holy Spirit gives you gifts so that you can build 1 another up in the body of Christ. The gift is not given to you so you can use it for your personal gain. The gift is not given to you
9:45 so that other people will think you're special. The gift is given to you so that you can deploy that gift in a church for the purpose of building up the body. Therefore, when I hear people say, I'm I don't
9:56 go to church, I am the church. If you don't go to church, you're not deploying your gift. Back in the day when I was a youth pastor, I remember being at a retreat up in Wisconsin 1 time for 3 days. It was negative 35
10:08 degrees outside. During part of the afternoon, 1 of the things that kids did, this was some 25 years ago, this was before cold plunges were considered hip. They got in this sauna and
10:20 they had to trot basically 200 yards across knee deep snow to the ice over lake that had a hole cut in it and they would jump in and we had to watch them to make sure they weren't in there more than 45 seconds or we
10:32 wouldn't have been able to pull them out. And then we had to pull them out and they would drop back and I was like, enough of this, I'm going inside. And people were putting together this puzzle And I'm not a big puzzle
10:40 putter together, but I was just like, I'd rather do that, drink hot chocolate, than be outside. So we were putting together this puzzle, and wouldn't you know after a couple days, this thousand piece puzzle got put
10:49 together except for 1 problem. We're missing 1 piece. We had 999. Now isn't interesting that every kid that walked by for the rest of the weekend were they didn't look at it and say, hey, great job on the
11:01 that's excellent. All they said was this, dude, you're like missing a piece. I think when God looks down from heaven and sees believers that have been empowered by the spirit and gifted by the spirit that don't
11:13 deploy their gift in a local church, he says, I'm missing a piece. You matter to God that much. 1 of the reasons I left doing itinerant ministry full time became pastor of a church because I got tired of watching
11:25 people come to Christ that didn't have a place to plug in and grow in their gifting. In the local churches where that happens. And God wants you to consider what your gift may be. And we'll talk about that later. And
11:36 then how you can deploy that among the church. Now understand this, when I say supernatural abilities, that's what you need to remember because for instance, you know, in the in the great commission, we're
11:48 called to teach everything that he's teach everything we've we've observed, obey everything he's commanded. So all of us are called to teach, are we not? All of us are called to make disciples, but then
12:00 there's a spiritual gift that's a supernatural ability of teaching. When somebody has a supernatural ability to teach, they teach God's word in a way where you're like, I've read that passage before, I never saw that.
12:10 I've read this 10 times, I didn't see Where did they come? It's a gift of teaching. Or all of us are called as servants of Jesus to serve, but there's certain people that have a supernatural ability to serve that receive
12:22 incredible joy from serving. All of us are called to pray and seek the Lord, but some of us have a supernatural ability of intercession that when we're seeking the Lord, it's great delight and joy and we
12:34 spend our time doing that. Do you understand? All of us are called to do the things God's called us to do. We're all called to be financially generous to the church, but certain people have a gift of generosity where
12:44 they can lavish out resources in the church and it gives them incredible joy to do that. And so some people have the gift of evangelism where they like, like I do, like speaking on subway trains and going
12:56 to bars and sharing with lost people. And some, you know, but and we're all called to evangelize but some people have a supernatural ability to do it where they just get excited about it and it it works for them. You
13:07 know what I'm saying? So it's not just that we're called to do something, it's that we're supercharged by the Holy Spirit to do it in a unique way. And what you'll find is once you get saved, those things
13:19 will just start happening naturally for you. Now that as background, let's get into first Corinthians 12 13 and 14 as we do a quick overview on these passages. And I'm gonna call chapter 12, the
13:30 deployment of spiritual gifts. Now notice what Paul says. He says, now concerning spiritual gifts brethren, I do not want you to be unaware. Some of your Bibles will say, I do not want you to
13:42 be ignorant. What he's saying is this, be informed about spiritual gifts. Learn about spiritual gifts. Don't be ignorant. I find 3 other times in the New Testament where we're told not
13:54 to be ignorant. K? Listen listen. 1 is in Romans 11 where he tells us not to be ignorant because God still has a plan for the nation of Israel. So don't be ignorant. God still has a plan for
14:06 Israel. In second Corinthians chapter 2, he says, don't be ignorant. Don't be unaware of Satan's mind oriented schemes or Satan's strategy for your life. Satan has a strategy to
14:17 take you out. Don't be ignorant about that. And in first Thessalonians chapter 4, he says, don't be ignorant or unaware about the second coming of Christ. So 4 places in the Bible God says, don't be ignorant.
14:29 1, he loves Israel. 2, Satan has a strategy for your life. 3, Jesus Christ is coming back. And 4, spiritual gifts are real. And what do we fight over in the church all the time? Israel, the
14:41 second coming gifts and how Satan works. I mean, don't be ignorant. He's like, I'm gonna make this plain to you. This is not something to argue. And here's what I find. The greatest gifts that God gives is what Satan
14:52 tries to mess around with. God gives gender, male and female, everybody wants to mess around with it. God gives marriage between a man and a woman, everybody wants to mess around with it. When God gives wonderful gifts,
15:02 let's just take him at his word and not be ignorant about it, amen? So he tells us don't be ignorant and here's why. Because in the first 3 verses, we're not gonna read, he tells them, hey, listen, here's what I know.
15:11 You come from all these pagan backgrounds where all these demons are manifesting and doing all this. I wanna let you know, no 1 can say Jesus is Lord unless Jesus is in him. So what you find is in verses in in this book
15:22 to the to the Corinthians is a very immature and young church, very immature and young church. And Paul's writing to them to help them grow in maturity and what's going on in their service is nothing shy of
15:34 craziness. You got people speaking in tongues and nobody understands. You got people prophesying, nobody's listening. You got all these different demon manifestations and he's like, hey, calm down. Let me show you a
15:45 better way. And by the way, just a sidebar note, when you're around people that are always talking like, listen. I believe Satan is a real being and I believe he has legions of helpers called demons. I
15:57 believe it. I do not believe that every time something goes wrong, it's the demon of whatever went wrong. I do not think there's a demon behind every rock. I do not believe Christians manifest. I
16:09 don't. And when you listen to young immature believers, they're always talking about the demon of this. We gotta manifest. We gotta pray it out. We gotta do No, you don't. You need to disciple them in the truth. And then
16:18 if there is demonic activity, that will show itself forward and you should be a more mature saint to be able to deal with that. Amen? That makes sense? So this is what he's telling them. Don't be unaware of spiritual
16:29 gifts. And then he's gonna tell them this. He's like gonna be aware that the same spirit gives a variety of gifts. There's myriads of gifts. We're not gonna get into all of them. If you read
16:41 Romans chapter 12, you'll find more of them. I'll read first Peter 4 here in a second. Ephesians 4 verses 11 and 12 talks about offices and gifts to the body of apostle,
16:53 prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher that are given to the church to build the saints for the work of ministry. But really first Corinthians chapter 12 and Romans chapter 12 are the 2 biggest highlighted places. And let
17:03 me just say this before we get into the different gifts. Let me read first Peter chapter 4 so that you know what to do when you discover what your gift is. Here's what he says. He says in first Peter chapter 4 verse 10,
17:14 as each 1 has received a special gift, employ it in serving 1 another as a good steward of the manifold grace of God. So if you have a gift, serve other people with your gift. If you have the gift of
17:25 hospitality, welcome people. If you have the gift of generosity, give lavishly. You have the gift of evangelism, share your faith. Wherever your gift is, use it in the lives of other people. Notice how he
17:37 says verse 11, whoever speaks is to do so as 1 who is speaking the utterances of God, whoever serves is to do as 1 who is serving by the strength which God supplies so that in all things, God may be glorified through
17:49 Jesus Christ to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. We're doing all these things on behalf of Jesus. Why do we do these? Because we love Jesus. And so we wanna serve his church
18:01 in the best way we know how. Now here's what he says. Let's just read through some of this. He says this in verse 4, now there are there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit. And there are varieties of ministries
18:12 and the same Lord. And there are varieties of effects, but the same God who works in all persons. So what's he saying? Same God, but there's different gifts, different ministries and different
18:24 effects. What does that mean? It means you can get the gift of teaching and you can get another person get the gift of teaching, but you may get different measures of teaching. You may get different ways that that
18:36 teaching is used effectively. You you may get different ways that that gift operates. Let me give you an example. I went to nursery school when I was 4. My nursery school teacher, her name was Barb Garber. She's with the
18:47 Lord right now. Barb Garber used to be able to have us do this, and she would have us sit on a magic square, 35 of us, with our sitting Indian style with our hands folded and nobody was talking. And as I grew up
18:59 in the church that I was in, I remember even being in high school where she would march down 34 year olds, and they would all follow her in a single file line. None of them were talking, and they would sit on the
19:09 imaginary magic square with their legs crossed and their hands folded, and I thought that's what 4 year olds did. Nobody talked, everybody paid attention and she was
19:21 awesome. Until I ran a VBS 1 year when I was in my twenties and they asked me to take 5 kids outside to play duck duck goose and it took me 15 minutes to get them to sit in a circle. I'm
19:33 like, what happened to the magic square? And that's when I realized that's her anointing and that's her gift because she had a gift of teaching with 4 year olds and 5 year olds and she was good at it and I still remember
19:45 some of the stuff that she taught me when I was that age. So just because you have a gift of teaching doesn't mean you're in the pulpit. You could be in a classroom, you could be in a school, you could be in a
19:54 governmental law, you could be anywhere. God gifts you with different measures, different means, different ways of how you're gonna do that and how you're gonna operate. Does that make sense? Same
20:06 spirit, different gifts. Why? Because God's unique call on your life is different than anybody else's call. Now do pay attention to this. Pay attention to some of the people that
20:18 you're drawn to in the body of Christ because chances are there's certain things in your gifting that's drawn to them. I remember when I was really beginning to grow in Christ in my early twenties, I
20:29 started hearing people and like Howard Hendrix and Tony Evans and doctor David Jeremiah and Chuck Swindoll and I'd be at promise keepers. I'm like, where did all these guys go to school? And they're like, went to
20:39 Seminary. I'm like, I need to go there because there was something inside me that said, I wanna be able to handle the Bible like these guys. I didn't even know why. I just wanted to be around that. And there are things
20:49 inside your heart that when you're attracted to someone in the body of Christ, chances are they have some of your gifts. If you're drawn to people that really have a gift of prayer or really have a gift of discernment or
21:00 really have a gift of encouragement or really love to serve and you're drawn to them, chances are there could be something inside of you that the Lord is trying to bring out. So pay attention to that. And he goes on to
21:11 talk about some of these gifts. He says in verse 7, each 1 is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good. Listen to this. For the 1 is given the word of wisdom
21:23 through the spirit and to another the word of knowledge according to the spirit and to another faith by the same spirit and to another gift of healings and to another effecting of miracles and to another prophecy and to
21:33 another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues and to another interpretation of tongues. But 1 and the same spirit works all these things distributing to each 1 individually just as he
21:45 wills. So the Holy Spirit is the 1 who gives gifts, gives the measure of gifts, decides which gifts you're gonna get, and decides how you're gonna be operating in those gifts. And he gives you those things so that you
21:57 can use them. A word on gifting. If you use your gift, it will grow. If you do not use your gift, it will atrophy. So he gives things to you, not for you to
22:09 store up, he gives things to you so you can minister to other people in the body of Christ. And what you'll find is as a believer, there's certain parts of ministry that you're more prompted towards. There's
22:20 certain things in your life that you'll say, why doesn't everybody see it this way? I remember my first year in seminary, I went to 3, but the first 1 I went to, I remember I was at seminary the first year, 1500
22:30 students. And I heard that they were gonna do an evangelism night, go out and share the gospel, go out to the bars, do all this stuff. I'm like, this is gonna be awesome. I can't wait to go. 1500 students, we're gonna
22:41 have hundreds of people go out and share the gospel. I I can't wait. I'm I mean, that's what I love to do. Why? And I got there that night, guess how many people showed up? 7. And my thought at the time was I picked the
22:53 wrong school. What is wrong with these people? How come nobody wants to go out and share their faith? Now over the years, what I've come to realize is not everybody enjoys that in the same way. And it doesn't make you
23:03 less spiritual because you don't wanna go do that. We're all called to share our faith and our sphere of influence, do it. But for some of us that have the gift of evangelism, we're looking for opportunities to go do
23:14 that stuff. I've spoken on subway trains in New York City, I've preached on the streets in London, I been told all sorts of names so when somebody occurs to me on Christmas Eve, it's no big deal. It's happened to me many
23:24 times. You know, I mean, I like all that stuff. It's fun for me. But I'm telling you, when you go do the thing you're called to do, there'll be something goes off in your heart. Why isn't everybody doing this? How come
23:35 not everybody's coming to the prayer meeting? How come not not everybody's passing out turkeys at thanksgiving? How come nobody else has compassion? Whatever your gift is, you think everybody else should have it, not
23:44 everybody does. You have it and other people will be drawn to you as you deploy your gift. Does that make sense? And so that's what we need to bear in mind and that's what we need to understand is there's
23:56 these varieties of gifts and different ones manifest differently. We're not going through all these but you know, a word of wisdom is not just we're all called to live wisely. The Bible teaches us to live wise. The whole
24:07 Proverbs is a book on wisdom. James talks about wisdom. But when somebody has a gift of wisdom, spiritual gift of wisdom, there can be 17 things going on. Everybody's sitting around the room saying, don't know what to
24:16 do. I don't know what to do. And they say, you know, this is what we do. It's kinda like when King Solomon, know, he had the whose baby is it? King Solomon's like, bring it to me. Let's just cut the baby in half. And
24:28 the the real mom's like, if that's what you're gonna do, give it to her. He's like, that's the real mom. Do you know what I'm saying? That's wisdom. Right? And then there's this word of knowledge. Word of knowledge is
24:37 where you know something about somebody else that you wouldn't know about anybody else had you not known it. Right? Discernment comes with that gift. My wife has that gift in spades. I don't get that very often.
24:49 I remember 1 time when we were newly married, we've been married probably 6 weeks and I've been spending time with a guy I led to the Lord and we were out to dinner, just the 2 of us, and she said these words to me.
25:01 She's like, I just want you to know 1 day if we ever have children, that man will never be with my kids because he's an abuser. And I was like, what? I'm like, you can't say that about somebody if you don't know. And we
25:13 of course, we got in a fight because of me. And wouldn't you know about 2 weeks later, my friend called me. We've been hanging out and he's like, hey, would you would you come talk to me? I'm like, yeah, what
25:24 happened? And I got to his house and he's like, bro, I goes, I know. He'd been working on his marriage. He's like, I know I lost my wife. He goes, know it. He goes, she came over last night. Were trying to work things
25:32 out. I got really mad because I end up choking her and pinned it on the ground. I almost killed her. And he goes, got away. I know she's never coming back. I called my wife on the phone and I was like, how did you know
25:42 that? She's like, I knew it the first time I saw him. That's a word of knowledge. So where you're prompted, you know something you wouldn't otherwise spiritually know. Those things happen. And
25:54 by the way, you don't need to go looking for your gift. Like that doesn't happen to me very often. Every now and again, maybe, but it's just something happens to my wife more frequently than not. Right? And so your
26:05 gifting is what ends up manifesting in and through you that's pretty natural that you need to continue to develop. You know, all these different things and we'll talk about some of them later. But whatever your gift
26:17 is, I just want you to be aware that the spirit gives a variety of gifts and the reason he gives them is because we don't have them all. Only Jesus had them all. That's why we need each other. So be mindful of this, be
26:28 mindful that we're part of 1 body. Now, here's what you need to do. You need to champion who you are. Notice what he goes on to say, in verse 14, he says, for the body is not 1 member but many. And if the foot says,
26:39 because I'm not a hand, I'm not part of the body. It is not for this reason any less part of the body. If the ear says, because I'm not an eye, I'm not a part of the body. It is not for any less it is not for this reason
26:50 any less part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? And if the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But God has placed the members each 1 of them in the body just
27:00 as he desired. Champion who you are and don't look around and say, how come I didn't get their gifts? Just deploy yours. That that's that's the way. Because if you're like, well, if I only had their gift, then I'd be
27:12 able to that's not why the holy spirit gives gifts. He gave you gifts, and I've seen many people in the body of Christ just accelerate because they have a gift of servanthood, or they have a gift of prayer, or they have
27:23 a gift of encouragement or they have a gift of teaching or they have a gift of hospitality or whatever the gifting is that they have, if you'll just deploy it, that gifting will grow and it will bless the body of Christ.
27:36 So champion who you are. When you begin to learn who the Lord made you, just go put that into practice. Baby step upon baby step upon baby step. I didn't know I had a gift of teaching or preaching when I was young,
27:48 but I did know from the time I got saved, I wanted to tell other people about Jesus. And I did know as I got a little older and there were opportunities to give testimony that I was raising my hands that I'd love to give
27:56 mine. And there was something about sharing verbally about what Christ had done that was good and little step by little step by little step, God continued to lead my ministry. And so the reality is you get prompted
28:08 little step by little step by little step, do what God calls you to do and that's how he's gonna use your life in miraculous ways. Amen? But not only champion who you are, appreciate everybody else's gift. Listen
28:20 to this. On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. Have you ever noticed that? I broke my fourth
28:32 toe on my left foot when I was in eighth grade. I didn't even ever think about my fourth toe on my left foot until I broke it. But once I broke my fourth toe on my left foot, I was like, I can't walk. I can't balance. I
28:44 can't do it. I'd never even given it thought. If somebody would said, is that an important thing? I'm like, I could probably live without it. And the reality is you could live without it, but even the little members mean
28:52 something. Even the things you're not thinking about. So in the body of Christ, God has those that are stabilizers. God has those that are doing different things that nobody sees or seemingly
29:04 unimportant, but if you're a Christian, how God's called you is super important. Amen? Amen. I personally believe I personally believe I have no way
29:16 of validating this improvement. Some of the intercessors in this life are gonna sit closer to closest to the throne of God. People that are not even known, people that you didn't know that God's saying, hey, the reason
29:28 that whole revival broke down is because for 30 years you sat in your house and nobody knew who you were and you prayed and sought after me. I think the great things are happening in a break because of people like that
29:36 that are praying here. I believe that with my whole heart. So it's not about being visible, it's about how God is using you. Amen? And it's gonna go on. Notice what else he says, and those members of the body which we
29:48 deem less honorable on those we bestow more abundant honor and on our less presentable members become more presentable. Think about this. I'm more thrilled today that my heart and kidneys are working
30:00 than I have an arm. I can live without my arm. It's a more presentable member. Nobody would wanna see my kidneys or my heart on a table today. Right? But even though those are
30:12 hidden, they're more valuable. And sometimes in the body of Christ, those that are hidden are more valuable. So I'm saying it's not about using your gift to get
30:24 notoriety and recognition, that's the American way. What it's about is deploying your gift in such a way because the 1 in heaven sees your gift and wants to use you, amen? And when
30:35 you're using that and you have great joy in your life, that's when you can experience abundance with Christ. Does that make sense? And so God just wants you to take what he's stored up in your heart and put it into
30:45 practice. And then realize this, you don't have all the gifts and neither do I. Notice verse 27. Now you are Christ's body and individually members of it. And God is appointed in the church first
30:57 apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, administrations, and various kinds of tongues. Then he says this, all are not apostles, are they? Now in the original language, they
31:09 use 2 different articles. This is the negative article. It's expecting a negative answer. It's even more so. All these are no. All are not apostles, are they? No. All are not prophets, are they? No. All are not teachers,
31:20 are they? No. All are not workers of miracles, are they? No. All do not have gifts of healing? No. All do not speak in tongues, do they? No. All do not interpret, do they? No. They don't. But
31:31 earnestly desire the greater gifts and he's gonna show you an excellent way. So desire these gifts, but you won't have them all. That's why you have to be part of a local fellowship because God arranges all the parts and
31:42 we need each other for that. When you go through significant grief, you want someone that has a gift of mercy and compassion that wants to spend hours with you and not say anything and just be
31:54 present. And if you've never had that experience, it's beautiful when you have it, right? Sometimes when you don't know what to do, you need somebody who's got wisdom that can speak into that. Sometimes you need an
32:06 intercessor that can do that. Sometimes you need a word of encouragement. Not everybody can be all things for everybody. Only Jesus can, but he's given us these gifts. And that's why this is so important because Jesus in
32:18 his earthly ministry did all these things. Then he said, I'm going to heaven. I'm still the head of the church. You're my body to do everything I was doing when I was here. Now, you all get to do
32:29 it under the influence of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. So you go do all the work that I was doing. Amen? Amen. So here's the question. How are you gonna know your gift? Now you can take
32:41 spiritual gift inventories. If you go to First Steps, we do 1 of them. There's some online that you can get, some are free I think, some you pay for, and those can be helpful. But here's the best way to do it. Just get
32:52 in a cadre or get in the core and just start serving alongside other people and other people in the body of Christ will recognize your gifts. They'll start telling you you are so good at that. Now, don't
33:04 listen to your spouse or your kids because they'll tell you you're good at everything. Right? Or your mom, you know, because we're in church sometimes, you know, somebody's singing like, oh, you were so good. No, Mom,
33:14 they're not. You know? So I'm talking about when the body of Christ as a whole is saying these things, then you know maybe that's something that I need to consider. The way I used to do it when I was a youth
33:26 pastor, I used to invite every single adult into our ministry saying, this is where you wanna be. There's no better place. You wanna be with our students. Here's why. Let me give you a vision, all this stuff. I was
33:36 recruiting people from everywhere. And anybody that came on our team, gave them the same assignment week 1. You have to serve on our cafe team for at least 1 or 2 weeks. And here's the assignment. Just stand behind the
33:46 counter, pass out the cookies and the drinks and just say hi to kids and be nice and do that and then help me sweep the floor when we're done. And it happened every time like clockwork. Majority of people could not stay
33:57 behind the counter. I remember 1 guy named Bill, he would go out to the smoker's pit, he'd be with all these lost kids that were out there smoking whose friends dragged him there who didn't wanna be there, and he was
34:06 welcoming him inside, and he said he just had tears in his eyes, like pastor Jeff, these kids are lost, they need Jesus. I was out there sharing the gospel, it was so much fun. I'm like, okay, cool. Bill's an evangelist.
34:15 And then I would meet somebody else and they would come to me afterwards, they're like, pastor Jeff, have you ever looked at how unorganized that thing is behind the counter? You know, if we just got some tubs at the
34:27 container store and put this stuff, it could be so much more. I'm like, okay, administration. Then somebody else would come up to me and be like, hey, who brings the food? I'm like, well, we just kinda purchase it. You
34:36 know what? There's 90 small groups in the church. Why don't we just set up a whole plan for everybody to come in and bring it so you don't have to ever think about it again and then everybody can be involved? Like, okay,
34:44 leadership. And then somebody else will come to me afterwards and said, hey, I met this girl, and she told me her name, and, you know, she's going through a thing with her family, and her dad's an alcoholic, and she's
34:52 almost suicidal, and somebody's gotta reach out. I want her number. I wanna call her right now because I don't want her to go to a bad spot. I'm like, okay, mercy and compassion. And then there'd be somebody at the end
35:00 of the night that would just stay behind the counter. They'd come say thanks. I don't know if I'm doing anything, but it was so awesome to be here and set up the chairs and tear it down and mop the floor. Was I'm like,
35:08 okay, great. Helps. And I knew everybody's gift just by having them serve. It was so easy to see. We make it way too complicated. We're navel gazing as to what
35:20 it is when it's so obvious to everybody else around us. So instead of just taking spiritual gift inventories for 14 years, take 1 or 2, that's great, kinda learn and then start moving out on it. You know, it's taken me
35:32 years to clarify. I mean, my my my number 1 gift is apostleship. It's it's building ministry where Christ has not been done. I get fired up about thinking about more campuses. I get fired up about thinking about schools.
35:42 I get fired up about thinking about ministry being broadcast there. I that's how I think, and it's bolstered by wisdom and faith. That's why I'm telling you, here's how it works. Here's how you put it into practice.
35:51 That's how I preach. That's my style. That's who God made me. And if I stay within my gifting, I do okay. I stay outside my gifting, I don't do okay. Does that make sense? And all of us are that way. And so
36:03 the Lord just wants you to find where you can deploy your gifts and serve. But notice what he ends this by saying, earnestly desire the greater gifts. Now turn your Bible to chapter 14 verse 1. He
36:14 says, pursue love yet earnestly desire spiritual gifts. Wow. There's a whole chapter in between those 2, why? Because now that you understand the deployment of spiritual gifts, I wanna talk to you about the delivery
36:26 of spiritual gifts. The delivery of spiritual gifts. There's a way in which spiritual gifts must be delivered or they don't work. And I read this whole passage to you, but I'll just read the first verse. If I speak with
36:37 the tongue of men and of angels, I do not have love, I become a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. It says in verse 2, if I have not love, I am nothing. Verse 3, if I have not love, it
36:49 profits me nothing. And then it talks about what love is. It's patient and kind and not jealous or boastful, arrogant or rude, doesn't insist on its own way. That's who our God is. If God is the giver of gifts, then we
37:00 need to deploy the gifts from the God that gave us the gifts. So sometimes you'll hear people teach like, put your name in there. Like, Jeff is patient, Jeff is kind, Jeff is not jealous, Jeff is not boastful. And that'sShow more
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